Bill Belichick has fond memories of Thanksgiving high school football

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick recalls suiting up for the Fighting Panthers of Annapolis (Md.) against Severna Park.

Glen Farley

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has some words of advice for those high school football players who are suiting up today.

“It’s always a good feeling to win on Thanksgiving,” Belichick said Wednesday. “That makes the turkey taste better.

He was raised in Annapolis, Md., but has a sense of appreciation for the marriage between Thanksgiving Day and high school football in Massachusetts.

“It’s a great part of the whole holiday and the whole weekend. It’s big in this area,” said Belichick. “I grew up with that.

“Thanksgiving was always a big football weekend for me because our high school always had a Thanksgiving Day game with a big rival: Annapolis-Severna Park. That was a big one there. Then the Army-Navy game was always the Saturday after Thanksgiving. So growing up, that was like the key point in the year.”

The tradition followed him to his early days in the NFL as a coaching assistant on Rick Forzano’s staff in Detroit in 1976-1977.

“I coached (with) Detroit for a couple of years and had the Thanksgiving Day game there and you could really see what a big part of the community the Thanksgiving Day game was and what it brought there,” said Belichick, “and then when I came to New England in ’96, Stephen (Belichick’s son, now a coaching assistant on his staff) played Little League football.

“Of course, growing up here our kids played football and had the same kind of experience on Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day games, and the weekend and all that. It’s a part of the New England culture, life, Massachusetts, and I think it’s good. It’s good for families. It’s good for the excitement of the game. It’s good for the sport. It’s a good, wholesome thing.

“Turkey dinner, football: It’s a great holiday,” said Belichick. “You’ve got to love Thanksgiving. (There are) three (NFL) games now instead of two. The big Nantucket-Martha’s Vineyard clash (which will be played this Saturday). That was always a monster game, too.”

No bigger, of course, than Annapolis-Severna Park.

“Severna Park Falcons. We were the Fighting Panthers – Annapolis,” said Belichick, who has since been inducted into his school’s hall of fame. “It was pretty competitive. We got some. They got some. They got us my senior year. We got them my junior year.

“No field goals ever, so it would be like 19-13. It was 50-50 on the extra points. You’d go for two. Usually a touchdown with a one- or two-point conversion messed up in the scoring there. So you never had like 21-14, 28-21.

“There were some missed extra points. There was a two-point conversion. No field goals. Forget about that,” said Belichick. “(It was) back in the day of straight-on kickers and some defensive end or whoever you had as your kicker and the ball would go right through the uprights or over by the pylon – one or the other.”

Glen Farley may be reached at gfarley@enterprisenews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @GFarley_ent.

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